Diphtheria: its natural history and prevention.

  • Thorne, R. Thorne (Richard Thorne), Sir, 1841-1899.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diphtheria: its natural history and prevention. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    the children were roused from theiV sleep at midnight to return to the infected house to bid the little sufferer a last farewell. One little child was brought in a blanket to save time. As the patient was dead on their arrival, they were each lifted up to kiss the lips of their dead brother. Whether from kissing the corpse, or from returning to the infected atmosphere of the sick-room, the other children contracted the disease, as might have been expected. ... In several cases mothers persisted, in spite of the warnings and entreaties of their medical advisers, in kissing their children's lips, and appeared in this way to have contracted diphtheria. The attacks in the cases of these mothers occurred, according to in- formation supplied to me by Dr. Low, within a week of the act of kissing. I am also induced to revert in this connection to the occurrence of diphtheria in adult life, an age-period when, in so far at least as mortality is concerned, the incidence of the disease becomes so much reduced as to border on immunity.^ In a large number of the in- stances in which adult diphtheria has come within my own experience there has either been some indication of pre-existing sore-throat favouring reception of the contagion, or, and this more often, there has been opportunity for some close contact between sick and healthy. I am able, in illustration of this point, to con- trast certain hospitals in which diphtheria is received. In one there is a rigid rule that no diphtheria patient shall be lifted up or carried about, and in that institu- 1 See Table No. VIII, p. 38.